Empires Comics Vault

November means it’s National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, for short. We’re not so sure we’re up for writing a novel, but we’re definitely committed to building a habit of writing every day.

We've had a fantastic month with Inktober in our #SketchWithEmpires group, and I've sketched something everyday so far!

With that in mind, we’re gearing up for daily writing this November, and we’re hoping to breathe new life into our #WriteWithEmpires group on Facebook. We hope you'll join us.

#NaNoWriMo2020

This November, we're going more #NaNoRebel than NaNoWriMo (but if you want to write a novel, check out their website to learn how it works). 

As for #NaNoRebel, basically, it means write what you want, but write something everyday.

Maybe you want to write a script for comics or movies or a children's book. Maybe it's poetry. Write X number of pages or words daily. Just do something every day AND use the FB group for accountability and checking in.

The group has been set to “private," so it's just us in there. No one can see what you share, and per Facebook's rules, we can never make the group "NOT-private." So please, unless it's your own writing, do not share it outside the group. Feel free, of course, to share your writing--or an excerpt--in the group, if you'd like. 

#WriteWithEmpires

We've put together a library of prompt-photos for each day of November. We’ll share each day’s photo in the group and you can use the comments to check-in that day and/or to share what you’ve written.

If you decide to share your own writing (or an excerpt of it) outside the group, for example on Instagram or on your FB wall, please consider using our official hashtag: #WriteWithEmpires and #WritersOfSacramento (if you're local or from the area).

Here are some popular writing hashtags you may also wish to use:

#writing #iamawriter #writersofinstagram #poetry #creativewriting #writinglife #poet #poetrycommunity #poem #words #poems #writingcommunity #writerscommunity

Supporting local, indie, and/or small press comic book creators is a passion of ours. 

We even feature many in the Small Press section of the comic shop. Another way we do that is through our KickstartThis! video interview series, which we started back in March 2019 on our YouTube channel.

We’ve included the pertinent information below. As you know, Kickstarter campaigns are time sensitive. In fact, some of the campaigns we’re listing below only have about a week to go, so we’ve listed them in order of end-date; that is, campaigns ending soonest come first.

Our next two KickstartThis! Interviews are in the works but we want to share our selections with you, right here, first. 

Tiny Wizards by Sacramento’s Eben Burgoon

Goal: Must fund by Fri, March 13 2020 7:07 PM PDT.

Status: As of this writing, it’s at about 66% of its $7500 goal.

View the Tiny Wizards’ campaign on Kickstarter

If you’ve read Eben’s Eben07 or B-Squad, then you know you’re in for giggles and squeals and LOLZ. If you haven’t read those, then start at the $10 tier to receive digital copies of those books. 

But we’re really here to talk about Tiny Wizards. According to the Kickstarter campaign, "Tiny Wizards is a fantastical tickle on your tummy; the first in a series of graphic novel featuring french-fry sized wizards dueling amongst fast food joints in a truck stop town... think "Lord of the Onion Rings" ... "Game of Burger Thrones"... "Harry Potter and Super Sized Goblet of Code Red Dew" ... "Highlander meets Happy Meals.” 

We haven’t interviewed Eben about one of his projects since we interviewed him about B-Squad, back in 2015, right before Free Comic Book Day (turns out that was May 2—same as this year’s FCBD Festival!). So we’re really excited to reconnect with him about Tiny Wizards in the next few days.

Watch for the interview on our YouTube channel.

The Dark Gun #5 by Matt Durand

Goal: Must fund by Mon, March 16 2020 10:02 AM PDT. 

Status: As of this writing, it’s almost at 30% of its $1500 goal.

View The Dark Gun’s campaign on Kickstarter

We reviewed The Dark Gun, issue 1—and it keeps flying off the shelves. On top of that, we also interviewed Matt as part of our INTER -VIEWS series. Matt is a top-notch comics creator and has successfully completed and delivered on several Kickstarter campaigns.

According to the Kickstarter campaign, issue 5 "is broken up into two sections. The first part explores the bloody origins of the dark gun and the second part jumps into the future to see what has become of the world that the gun existed in. Has its reign of terror come to an end or is its journey truly just beginning?”

We’d love to see this fund. So if it catches your interest, please pull the trigger. See what we did there? Dark Gun. Trigger? ...

The Eerie Enigma of Ghostly Gary by Marcus Clawson

Goal: Must fund by Tue, March 31 2020 11:59 PM PDT.

Status: As of this writing, it’s at 42% of its $5000 goal.

View the Eerie Enigma of Ghostly Gary’s campaign on Kickstarter

Marcus Clawson is no stranger to our Small Press shelf. His comic, Mallow Man, graced our shelves in its heyday. Now we’re excited to see his latest project, a children’s book called The Eerie Enigma of Ghostly Gary—"a picture book written in verse, illustrated in one month, about a ghost trying to find out how he died.” And we’re told that it’s “filled with horror references!”

This year we’re going to be talking a lot more about what comic books mean to us. I know we’re all singing from the same song sheet here, and I’ll say it anyway: comic books matter.

For those that may not know, Susan Eisenberg is a voiceover actress best known for playing Wonder Woman in Justice League and JLU, JL: Doom, DCUO, Injustice2, and JLvsF5.

Today Susan Eisenberg tweeted a powerful video that resonated with us. And we want to share it with you.

Please watch it and then let us know what you think: how have comic books, its characters, its animated versions, etc., made an impact on your life?

The next time someone tells you comics and cartoons aren’t important or don’t have an impact...Thank you Allie for sharing this with me today! #WonderWoman pic.twitter.com/3MrL63uWlP